(13-12-2012 04:38 PM)conkles Wrote: I think ghosts are a really interesting subject. I consider them possible, and I feel like I have experienced some supernatural and freaky shit before. I frequently go to a park called Starved Rock in Illinois where there was a large massacre of natives throughout the canyon system, and during certain times I enter caverns and have felt very uneasy and like I want to leave the area (feelings like dread or the feeling of being watched as well). I have also had other experiences in the house I grew up.

Then later I started watching Ghost Adventures. I have always watched other ghost hunting shows with a high level of skepticism, but this show truly seemed different. The things they capture on tape and the data they collect is incredible and compels me to find more and try and find more evidence to believe myself.

I just love paranormal stuff. Always have.

I share your love of the paranormal.

But I do have to ask you, do you think you would have felt these same sensations had you not known about the area you were experiencing them in?

I'd also like to ask, have you ever felt "ghostly" sensations in broad daylight and around a crowd of people?

How many of these experiences were in dark, lonely places. Even in your house, did you ever experience them with other people around you?

One aspect of these ghost shows I absolutely despise is the super dramatic nature of the investigations. Does it really matter if you have all the lights off or not? If there is an apparition, wouldn't you see it more clearly in a well-lit area? I mean, does a ghost glow?

What about the clothing? Why are ghosts always clothed? Ghostly clothing?

I am open for explanations along the lines of energy traces. That type of explanation would cover the clothing issue as even our clothing is made up of atoms with energy. The spirit explanation fails for clothing because well, our clothing can't possibly have spirits.

“We are all connected; To each other, biologically. To the earth, chemically. To the rest of the universe atomically.” -Neil deGrasse Tyson

We live in an age when we can hot drop a 1 ton science lab on another planet with insane precision that is MOBILE and NUCLEAR POWERED. An age when we've cured tons of illnesses and diseases and medical science has a vastly awesome understanding of the brain we'd have only fathomed years prior. An age when we can look into the past thanks to the hubble deep field and wicked mathematics, seeing galaxies in their infancy millions of years after the big bang. We understand red shift. We pull oil out of the bottom of the ocean with engineering feats that the romans would have shit their pants thinking about.

We have even mapped out and detected the background radiation of the big bang... you would think by now if ghosts, unicorns, magic beasts and the supernatural existed we'd have more than certainly detected (at least as SOME form of energy) by now... and not on night camera television shows that can never be confirmed. I could be wrong, and maybe someday some ghosts will pop up and go, "Hey guys sorry... ok ok, you're all advanced now, I guess the jig is up. You would have found us anyway."

But I feel the same way about a god being.

If it can be asserted without evidence, it can be dismissed without evidence.

But I will admit, I like the "Paranormal Activity" movies... (I still think it's all bullshit though)

(18-12-2012 08:22 AM)Logisch Wrote: We live in an age when we can hot drop a 1 ton science lab on another planet with insane precision that is MOBILE and NUCLEAR POWERED. An age when we've cured tons of illnesses and diseases and medical science has a vastly awesome understanding of the brain we'd have only fathomed years prior. An age when we can look into the past thanks to the hubble deep field and wicked mathematics, seeing galaxies in their infancy millions of years after the big bang. We understand red shift. We pull oil out of the bottom of the ocean with engineering feats that the romans would have shit their pants thinking about.

We have even mapped out and detected the background radiation of the big bang... you would think by now if ghosts, unicorns, magic beasts and the supernatural existed we'd have more than certainly detected (at least as SOME form of energy) by now... and not on night camera television shows that can never be confirmed. I could be wrong, and maybe someday some ghosts will pop up and go, "Hey guys sorry... ok ok, you're all advanced now, I guess the jig is up. You would have found us anyway."

But I feel the same way about a god being.

If it can be asserted without evidence, it can be dismissed without evidence.

But I will admit, I like the "Paranormal Activity" movies... (I still think it's all bullshit though)

Yup. And I like the Harry Potter books, but I know they are fantasy.

Skepticism is not a position; it is an approach to claims.
Science is not a subject, but a method.

I think the problem is that everyone assumes that these cases are ghosts, despite that fact that we don't have any physical description on what a ghost, looks or feels like, or when we know that a ghost is actually there. There may be something there, but you can't say it's a ghost unless you actually knew what a entity we call a ghost is. For example, if you feel a sensation of something moving in your house, you may think you felt the presence of what you call a ghost, but in reality, it may be a robber sneaking through your home.

A few years back, my paternal grandfather was stricken with cancer and began a slow decline of increased suffering until his ultimate death in the living room of the house he'd owned since he was a young man. The heartache of that year was tremendous for pretty much everyone; especially my already-unstable grandmother. About 6 months after my grandfather passed, my great grandmother (mother of the unstable one) began to decline in health as well. As we did with my grandfather, we ordered a hospital bed and a live-in nurse and set her up in what used to be our (kids') bedroom. She slowly weakened until we all watched her take her final breath late one night. It was no more than a month later that my grandmother - having lost her husband and mother - intentionally overdosed on the couch in the living room and sat for 4 days before we opted to kick in the front door.

We never disclosed the morbid history of the place to the new home-owners, and every so often, I fancy the idea of going to them without telling them who I am (they never met me) and asking them a little about the place. Maybe see if they'll reveal any so-called "paranormal" occurances. It'd be an interesting (if not legitimately scientific) experiment.

My guess is that they'll reveal nothing of the sort. But, it'd be interesting to find out.

(18-12-2012 08:22 AM)Logisch Wrote: We live in an age when we can hot drop a 1 ton science lab on another planet with insane precision that is MOBILE and NUCLEAR POWERED. An age when we've cured tons of illnesses and diseases and medical science has a vastly awesome understanding of the brain we'd have only fathomed years prior. An age when we can look into the past thanks to the hubble deep field and wicked mathematics, seeing galaxies in their infancy millions of years after the big bang. We understand red shift. We pull oil out of the bottom of the ocean with engineering feats that the romans would have shit their pants thinking about.

We have even mapped out and detected the background radiation of the big bang... you would think by now if ghosts, unicorns, magic beasts and the supernatural existed we'd have more than certainly detected (at least as SOME form of energy) by now... and not on night camera television shows that can never be confirmed. I could be wrong, and maybe someday some ghosts will pop up and go, "Hey guys sorry... ok ok, you're all advanced now, I guess the jig is up. You would have found us anyway."

But I feel the same way about a god being.

If it can be asserted without evidence, it can be dismissed without evidence.

But I will admit, I like the "Paranormal Activity" movies... (I still think it's all bullshit though)

Not to nitpick at you or anything, but to nitpick... I can blurb out a a few things myself describing the many mysteries that have yet to be solved.

Yes, we have had great achievements and discoveries, but that doesn't even begin to take a slice out of the whole pie. You shouldn't dismiss "ghosts" purely on the fact that we know a fraction of a percent about the universe we live in. We still can't figure out a cure for cancer and that stuff is in our bodies readily available for testing.

If we had energy and matter completely figured out already, we wouldn't need the LHC anymore. As I've said, I don't believe in ghosts. I am skeptical about any of those ghost stories being remotely real. But I will entertain the thought that there might be some actual facts behind them that we haven't figured out yet. Just like I will entertain the thought that God or gods might be real. I just can't go the full 100%.

“We are all connected; To each other, biologically. To the earth, chemically. To the rest of the universe atomically.” -Neil deGrasse Tyson

(19-12-2012 10:43 PM)NoahsFarce Wrote: Not to nitpick at you or anything, but to nitpick... I can blurb out a a few things myself describing the many mysteries that have yet to be solved.

Yes, we have had great achievements and discoveries, but that doesn't even begin to take a slice out of the whole pie. You shouldn't dismiss "ghosts" purely on the fact that we know a fraction of a percent about the universe we live in. We still can't figure out a cure for cancer and that stuff is in our bodies readily available for testing.

If we had energy and matter completely figured out already, we wouldn't need the LHC anymore. As I've said, I don't believe in ghosts. I am skeptical about any of those ghost stories being remotely real. But I will entertain the thought that there might be some actual facts behind them that we haven't figured out yet. Just like I will entertain the thought that God or gods might be real. I just can't go the full 100%.

When someone wants (or needs) to believe, they just ignore questions like this:

Quote: What about the clothing? Why are ghosts always clothed? Ghostly clothing?
I am open for explanations along the lines of energy traces. That type of explanation would cover the clothing issue as even our clothing is made up of atoms with energy. The spirit explanation fails for clothing because well, our clothing can't possibly have spirits.

Maybe it's mental laziness. If you believe in ghosts, try to (logically) explain the clothing.
Maybe people who have lost someone need to believe in ghosts, the afterlife, etc. as a way to cope with sadness.
Maybe people are afraid of death and cannot accept their own mortality.

I'm sure most religions were created because of these toxic beliefs, adding fancy tales of death people happily living in paradise, meeting each other, etc.
Believing in ghosts automatically leads to other things like spirits, gods, angels, reincarnation, resurrection, ethereal beings, etc. etc. etc. so
be careful in those things you want to believe in.

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(19-12-2012 10:43 PM)NoahsFarce Wrote: Not to nitpick at you or anything, but to nitpick... I can blurb out a a few things myself describing the many mysteries that have yet to be solved.

Yes, we have had great achievements and discoveries, but that doesn't even begin to take a slice out of the whole pie. You shouldn't dismiss "ghosts" purely on the fact that we know a fraction of a percent about the universe we live in. We still can't figure out a cure for cancer and that stuff is in our bodies readily available for testing.

If we had energy and matter completely figured out already, we wouldn't need the LHC anymore. As I've said, I don't believe in ghosts. I am skeptical about any of those ghost stories being remotely real. But I will entertain the thought that there might be some actual facts behind them that we haven't figured out yet. Just like I will entertain the thought that God or gods might be real. I just can't go the full 100%.

When someone wants (or needs) to believe, they just ignore questions like this:

Quote: What about the clothing? Why are ghosts always clothed? Ghostly clothing?
I am open for explanations along the lines of energy traces. That type of explanation would cover the clothing issue as even our clothing is made up of atoms with energy. The spirit explanation fails for clothing because well, our clothing can't possibly have spirits.

Maybe it's mental laziness. If you believe in ghosts, try to (logically) explain the clothing.
Maybe people who have lost someone need to believe in ghosts, the afterlife, etc. as a way to cope with sadness.
Maybe people are afraid of death and cannot accept their own mortality.

I'm sure most religions were created because of these toxic beliefs, adding fancy tales of death people happily living in paradise, meeting each other, etc.
Believing in ghosts automatically leads to other things like spirits, gods, angels, reincarnation, resurrection, ethereal beings, etc. etc. etc. so
be careful in those things you want to believe in.

Yeah, ghosts is a gateway belief.

Skepticism is not a position; it is an approach to claims.
Science is not a subject, but a method.